Modern flight deck displays for aircraft provide a considerable amount of information, such as vehicle position, speed, altitude, attitude, navigation, target, and terrain information. Most modern displays additionally display a flight plan from different views, either a lateral view, a vertical view, or a perspective view, which can be displayed individually or simultaneously on the same display.
Current ground operations, including for example taxiing procedures, at complex airports and/or in the low visibility conditions include a strictly-defined system of aircraft movement. The taxiways are separated into individual segments wherein only one aircraft can be present in the segment at a time. This system ensures the reduction of collision risks between aircraft. These segments are bounded by two or more “stop bars” that are controlled manually or automatically by air traffic control services. Further, the entry into a runway can be also equipped by these stop bars to protect the runway against inadvertent entry by aircraft or other vehicles when the runway is occupied. The aircrew's responsibility is to stop and hold at all active stop bars ahead of the aircraft. The responsibility is based on regulatory document ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) ANNEX 2:                “3.2.2.7.3 An aircraft taxiing on the manœeuvring area shall stop and hold at all lighted stop bars and may proceed further when the lights are switched off.”Thus the aircrew follows the clearances from the air traffic control services that provide him or her guidance of crossing the stop bar.        
However, a safety risk occurs when the aircrew is not able to detect the stop bar correctly in low visibility or when the aircrew overlooks the stop bar for various reasons. Further, in order to avoid missing stop bars, aircrew typically reduce the aircrafts taxiing speed below normal taxiing speeds to reduce the possibility of oversight of a lighted stop bar.
Stop bar detection solutions known in the prior art primarily include ground-based solutions such as induction loops, microwave sensors, or light gates, etc. These solutions are typically presented at complex airports with dense traffic and that have a good ground infrastructure. Other solutions known in the prior art include onboard solutions that are based on navigation databases with stored stop bar positions and/or datalinks from Air Traffic Control (ATC) that provides the current status of stop bars. The disadvantage of these onboard solutions is the requirement for periodical updating of the database and necessary datalinks and/or radio communication between aircrew and air traffic control services.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide improved systems and methods for stop bar detection and for providing stop bar information to an aircrew. In addition, it is desirable to provide such systems and methods that are based onboard an aircraft and that do not require database updating and links to ATC services. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.